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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Am I the only one who doesn't have a cleaner??

235 replies

Hotmad · 26/02/2014 09:48

At my mum & baby group the other day consisting of new mums only, I found out they all had hired cleaners!! I don't have one as I can't afford to have one. I just said, I live in a pig sty at present :)
I looked up cleaners costs and locally (london) they charge about £12-£15 per hour, Is this a lot do you think? I might pay myself £10 per hour and do it myself!

OP posts:

ROARmeow · 26/02/2014 09:53

YANBU.

I don't have a cleaner either. As a SAHM to 2 pre-schoolers, what would be the point.

But each to their own. If those mums have £££ to burn then fair enough.

Kiwiinkits · 26/02/2014 09:55

I'd rather have a cleaner than takeaway coffees, haircuts, magazines etc. They're brilliant and wonderful and the best investment I've ever made.

QueenofKelsingra · 26/02/2014 09:55

I don't have one. I'm a SAHM to 3 pre-schoolers. I do a room a day to keep on top of it. Except the kitchen which gets a wipe and sweep after each meal.

"Cleaning the house while the kids are growing is like shovelling snow while it's still snowing" - I have this printed out and stuck on my kitchen cupboard!

littlebluedog12 · 26/02/2014 10:01

YANBU but I used to live in London and found it was pretty common to see SAHMs with cleaners (we could never afford one!). Now we have relocated to a much more normal place and I don't know anyone who has a cleaner but I do know a lot more parents juggling work/childcare/housework etc. I think it's a London thing.

PansOnFire · 26/02/2014 10:02

I found this, I felt like I'd missed the part of having a baby where you hire people to do stuff for you. I'd love a cleaner! I think it would solve most of my first world problems. But I have the chance to reduce my working hours to 4 days and do the housework myself, or work 5 days and pay a cleaner. I want to work 3 days and have a cleaner but it will never happen! So I do the cleaning myself, work for 4 days and pray that no one drops in unannounced.

Burren · 26/02/2014 10:02

It's not a matter of having money to burn, for God's sake, it's just what you choose to spend it on. We both work long hours and want to prioritise time with our toddler when we're at home, so a cleaner is crucial. On the other hand, there are things we don't spend money on that other people would consider impossible to live without.

When we lived in London, we paid our excellent cleaner £10 an hour.

DonnaDishwater · 26/02/2014 10:03

Having a cleaner when you don't work is the height of laziness IMO. I wish I could have a cleaner but I can't afford paying someone to do what I can easily do myself.

NoArmaniNoPunani · 26/02/2014 10:04

I have a cleaner, best £20 a week I spend.

Supercosy · 26/02/2014 10:04

I dont have one but I would quite like one. Although I have a weird issue with someone else cleaning my house....even though I would be paying them I feel bad for them as I loathe cleaning so much myself!

Stinklebell · 26/02/2014 10:06

I don't have one, I'd like to though.

I don't think it's a case of money to burn, as a PP said, it's prioritising. The £20 a week (or whatever) would have to come from somewhere and I don't want to give up other things to pay for it.

sunev · 26/02/2014 10:10

I don't! Would love to be able to afford it, but would have to work extra hours, so kind of self-defeating. Sometimes I do pretend to be a cleaner to make myself get on with it (instead of making endless cups of tea and thinking about doing it) then treat myself with some of the money I would have spent on paying a cleaner.

HavantGuard · 26/02/2014 10:11

If you can afford it they are worth their weight in gold. Stupid household crap takes up time and energy. I don't think you need to have a young child to justify it either. If it were a choice between a cleaner and home dying my hair and having two takeaways a month then I'd go for a cleaner every time. If it were a choice between a cleaner and eating/paying the utility bills then obviously it's not an option.

There may be people who actively enjoy dusting and ironing but I'm not one of them.

GingerMaman · 26/02/2014 10:12

I don't have a cleaner but would love to have one.

Eastie77 · 26/02/2014 10:12

I have one, she comes round once a fortnight and this is the best thing I've spent money on since having my baby 8 months ago. I had an emergency CS and couldn't have cleaned in those early post birth weeks even if I wanted to - which I wouldn't have as I absolutely loathe housework. Yep I'm lazy!

DeWe · 26/02/2014 10:13

I don't knwo any of my friends who do. Dh had a friend who did at one point, but they're rather pretentious and I think they only had one so they could drop it into the conversation from time to time "oh must go back and tidy the house as the cleaner is coming"

Alibabaandthe40nappies · 26/02/2014 10:14

I'm a SAHM and I have a cleaner. It costs about the same as one decent meal out a month.

Which reminds me, I must go and tidy up, she'll be here in half an hour

ivykaty44 · 26/02/2014 10:14

I used to have a cleaner but she packed up and I didn't replace her, to be honest in the beginning she was good but age wained towards the end and wasn't worth the money

I do have a few cobwebs though but will be doing my own spring clean this month and saving £88 for the month

Vickiyumyum · 26/02/2014 10:14

I don't have one anymore. Had a couple of disastrous agency cleaners and a good lady but at the end of the day it was £30 a week id rather spend elsewhere and I found I was still cleaning in between, so it made sense for me to save the money and do it myself.

Ev1lEdna · 26/02/2014 10:15

No I don't have a cleaner - wouldn't mind one, I loathe cleaning but I don't have one. Those mums are lucky.

Yonineedaminute · 26/02/2014 10:19

We have just hired a cleaner and I have just gone on a year's maternity leave (second child)! I can feel people judging me from all angles but I just don't give shit!

There is no inherent virtue in cleaning, I hate it, I always do a half hearted job of things like cleaning the bathroom because I get interrupted by ds, and I would rather spend the time with ds and the new baby than scrubbing a shower screen! Obviously I will have to do stuff in between but the big, crap stuff will get done and its one less thing to worry about!

chocoluvva · 26/02/2014 10:19

I had a cleaner for two months after the birth of my second baby. I was barely coping - I seemed to spend most of the day breast-feeding. I felt guilty about the cost and a bit of a failure but it was worth the money.

Oriunda · 26/02/2014 10:20

I'm a SAHM. Have a cleaner (£10/hr and live in London). Don't care if some people think I'm lazy. DS is a bad sleeper. I wake @530am every day. Am always tired. I refuse to spend the precious time that DS naps cleaning when I could have a nap myself.

Yonineedaminute · 26/02/2014 10:24

And loads of people I know have a cleaner, from people who work full time with kids, to childless people who work, to people who have been sahms for several years.

Don't really get why it's 'lazy'. Is it lazy to have a washing machine when you could do it all by hand?

HavantGuard · 26/02/2014 10:24

It's funny how few people would suggest men were lazy for having a cleaner. Even when women work full time it seems it's something they feel/are made to feel they need to justify.

LokiTheCynicalCat · 26/02/2014 10:24

I have one, she is wonderful. Like a tidy tornado. I hate cleaning, my mum is the same and would always prioritise any other activity over cleaning. Now that my son is a toddler, for the first time in my life I get the rage-and-despair feeling when the house is filthy, and have actually cut short meetings with friends to go home and clean up. I would never really have noticed dirt and mess before, but then I suppose we were both working five days a week, never had food routinely thrown on the floor every mealtime, or a member of the household who doesn't wipe his feet, or nearly as much laundry to do. When my son and I are here, he chases the hoover and presses the buttons, and tries to play with the mop and water bucket, and everything takes five times as long with constant interruptions and tears. It's a huge relief to be able to whisk him out for a couple of hours and come back and have it all done.

(I hate cleaning so much that I got a groupon for a Roomba robot vacuum a few years ago. It is not the same as doing the vacuuming yourself but it keeps the cat hair down quite well. It's died this week and I am absolutely bereft! Now I am considering buying the one which washes your floors...)

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